[Blindmath] braille code changes and nemeth

[Susan Jolly]

I agree that the elimination in UEB of the dots 3,4,5,6 contraction for 
"ble" in the middle of a word was a positive change even though a human 
reader could typically resolve any ambiguities with the possible exceptions 
of a few words such as bumblebee. On the other hand, I find it a bit 
difficult that the UEB numeric indicator (number sign) not only sets numeric 
mode but sets also a special Grade 1 mode which can only be terminated 
before the end of a word by a hyphen or a dash.  This latter setting means 
that contractions cannot be used after a number when the Grade 1 mode hasn't 
been so terminated. For example the current American literary code allows 
for certain ordinal numbers, such as the one for first, to be written as a 
digit followed by a contraction but this is not allowed in UEB.

The new UEB setting does have the advantage that it's no longer necessary to 
insert a letter sign to avoid confusion with a shortform as would occur, for 
example, in a website named go4brl. However this setting also means that UEB 
does not allow the use of contractions after the embedded digit in a company 
name such as Houses4rent.

My basic point is that as is typically the case you don't get something for 
nothing.

SusanJ